How to change piping on softball pants

My girlfriend called me the other night, frantic. 

Her daughter, who has been on the JV softball team was asked to play on varsity for the rest of the season. 

Although she was excited for the opportunity, she wasn't excited about the pants her daughter was given. 

She normally wears an adult small but all that was left was an adult LARGE.  The poor child was swimming in them.

So this is what I started with.  Two pairs of old pants with piping that needed to be removed and 2 pairs of brand new pants that the piping needed to be taken off and sewn onto the old pants.

Oh, and she needed them the next day.  Nothing like a rush job, huh!

 

 

As soon as my kids got off to school, I started by removing the piping from the old pants.  Once you get started ripping the stitches out, it moves fairly quickly.

 

Luckily, the stitches weren't really tiny so they came off fairly easy.

 

 

Once the piping was removed for all pants, I lined up the new piping on the old pants and pinned it down.  

 

 

Sewing was a bit tricky because I don't have a commercial machine.  I used my old, heavy duty machine and removed the storage compartment from the front leaving the sewing surface smaller.  

I needed to have as little a surface to get the leg of the pants over as possible.

 

 

I then just did a straight stitch down the length of the piping.  In this case, I used cold thread with white bobbin thread over the gold part and burgandy thread over that part.  

 

 

See how it bunches when you get to the bottom of the leg?  That's why I removed the storage compartment on the machine.  

 

 

And finished.  They turned out fine.  Thankfully it's only a couple more weeks she will have to wear them and as long as they are the right color, she will fit in.

 

 

Now her mom just needs to get all those stains out :)

 

 

I didn't think this project would have taken me most of the day but somehow it did.  Taking out stitches is very time consuming.

But it's done and I'm glad to be able to use my skills to help out friends.  Maybe one day I can teach her how to sew.  

Fudge Brownies

 

My husband (and my daughter) love brownies. I usually buy the box mix and Tastefully Simple sells a great one. 

But, sometimes, when I don't have one on hand; I needed to find a quick and easy recipe to make brownies.

The hubs and daughter have been pressure washing the deck all day.  I thought a batch of brownies would be nice for them when they came in. I found this recipe, which got great reviews, so I had to give it a try.

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Combine sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder.

Stir in eggs, oil, and vanilla until combined.

Spread batter into greased 9x9 baking pan.

Bake at 350* for 25 to 30 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Recipe adapted from food.com

Fall Decorating

Where has summer gone? I mean, seriously; it seems like the kids just got out of school and here we are 1 1/2 months into another school year. Monday is the first day of fall.

Monday!

While fall isn't my favorite season, it kicks off a season of decorating that I absolutely love. 

I worked last week to get the house ready for fall and wanted to share what I did.

I have progressively gotten more fall time decorations over the past few years.

I have had these fun guys for several years, I love having them hang out in the dining room each year.

The coffee table has gotten more decorating this year than ever before. 

That's pretty much the extent of my fall decorating. It'll stay like this until Thanksgiving where it will be packed away to make room for the boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations that I own. I keep saying I'm going to downsize one year but that never seems to happen. 

Baseball Weekend

It's been a couple years since we have spent most of our weekends at the ball field.  The youngest played rec league this Spring and after it was over he tried out for a travel team to play with during the Summer.  He was really wanting to get on a team that offered a little more competition and a little more training.

So, this has been our 3rd weekend playing, I think we only have 1 more tournament to go then it will be over until the Fall, when we get back into it.

Years ago Zachary was a catcher and then he played mostly 2nd base, short stop or pitcher.  He hasn't been the catcher on a team for a number of years.  Until this season.  He got to get his old catcher gear out and give it a shot.  Apparently it's just like riding a bicycle because he seemed to pick up right where he left off.

Let's step back in time a little bit to his very first time catching.

 

I mean, the gear practically covers his entire body.  He was certainly protected.

It's been nice to see him geared up behind the plate again.

See all that mud around home plate?  Thankfully he managed to actually stay pretty mud-free.  I don't know how, but he did.

We played 3 games this weekend.  They were all early in the day so we had the afternoon free, which is always nice.  We didn't win any of the games but we got lots of playing time, had fun and I got a nice suntan.  

And, those things are the most important part. Right?